AV Club 4:57(Amy) 
[3.10 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
LAT 5:49 (Gareth) 
[2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 7:48 (Amy) [2.37 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker tk (Kyle) 
[3.60 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.25 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 8:43 (Emily) rate it
WSJ 6:25 (Eric) [2.50 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Prasanna Keshava’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Viral Investment” — Eric’s Review
Prasanna Keshava’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Viral Investment” — 10/15/25
Three unrelated compound nouns and a colloquial phrase each split a frequently-shared bit of cultural information:
- 17A [Hare and venison, for example] GAME MEATS
- 24A [Divider between the hemispheres] PRIME MERIDIAN
- 40A [Drastic steps] EXTREME MEASURES
- 52A [“Really, thanks for saying it was my fault!”] OH SURE BLAME ME
- 65A [Investment popularized on social media, and what the long Across answers contain?] MEME STOCK I learned this term only in the last year, when it was in some crossword puzzle. The term seems to simply refer to a stock that people are talking about (a lot) online.
If there’s more going on than just the letters M-E-M-E serving as “stock” for the other theme answers, I missed it. That’s all too likely, as I seem to be struggling more than usual lately to make sense of puzzle themes.
The theme answers are all familiar and would work fine in a themeless puzzle, though I can understand why GAME MEATS might bother some people whose diets don’t include animal flesh. I like that MEME is divided between two words.
The grid is a little choppier than I’d like to see. Only two Down answers exceed five letters.
Other stuff:
21A [Summer on the French Riviera] ÉTÉ/10D [Nice spot?] COTE D’AZUR These two together maybe crowd the line on duplications, as the French Riviera is called the Côte d’Azur in French.- 29A [Convention-mocking movement] DADA It took me a while to interpret “movement” as “art movement.”
- 69A [Lover of Aphrodite] ARES Per Wikipedia, “[W]hen the craftsman-god Hephaestus discovers his wife Aphrodite is having an affair with Ares, he traps the lovers in a net and exposes them to the ridicule of the other gods.”
- 8D [Known to be effective] TESTED That clue bothers me a little; if you test a product or procedure and it fails, it’s hardly “effective.”
- 33D [Tudor Nazaré Big Wave Challenge competitor] PRO SURFER I’d not heard of that competition, but the answer was fairly obvious.
- 42D [First name in scat singing] ELLA Fitzgerald (but you knew that, I hope).
- 54D [Número de días de la semana] SIETE There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of languages other than English in a crossword, and numbers are basic vocabulary. “Semana,” meaning “week,” doesn’t seem to have any cognates in English, which might make this clue a little trickier.
Nick Offerman & Christina Iverson’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 10/15/25 – no. 1015
I was excited to see the celebrity byline and mad that I wasn’t on the right wavelength to finagle the theme more quickly. The revealer is “WHAT A TOOL,” and the themers are phrases that end with the names of tools and could be read exclamatorially in the “what a great tool!” way.
- 17A. [Really spectacular drill component?], that’s “QUITE A BIT!”
- 24A. [Lively kind of saw for cutting intricate shapes?], “JIGGETY JIG!” Now, I don’t use “jig” as shorthand for a jigsaw, but then I am not a woodworker like Nick is. (I do enjoy wooden jigsaw puzzles, though. Heavy jig action.)
- 36A. [Truly awesome implement for ensuring stability?], “BOSS LEVEL!”
- 36A. [Truly awesome implement for ensuring stability?], “MODEL PLANE!”
The theme’s quite elegant, just took me a while to catch on to what was happening. I hope I’m not alone in that struggle.
Fave fill: Video gaming’s NERFED; TURTLE with a chocolate, caramel, pecans clue; WW II VET, THE TUBE, FRONT LINES, CRAFT BEERS, ALT TEXT (I use this on Bluesky to provide a description of an image, so readers with visual issues can get that content like anyone else), Conrad’s LORD JIM. Nick can lay claim to his BBQED meats and grillmaster’s APRON.
New to me: 15A. [Lead-up to a ski jump], INRUN.
Disputed: 33D. [Llama’s head?], ELS. In Spanish, that LL is one letter, right? Corrected by WIkipedia: “Since 2010, none of the digraphs (ch, ll, rr, gu, qu) are considered letters by the Royal Spanish Academy.” Okay, then!
Could do without NETFUL and RELOCK, which feel like slightly weird inflections for crosswords.
3.75 stars from me.
Kate Hawkins’s AV Club Classic crossword, “Challenging Turn”–Amy’s write-up
AV Club Classic crossword solution, “Challenging Turn” – 10/15/25
I didn’t see what the theme was doing until after the puzzle was done. The FIGHTS BACK ([Resists injustice, in a way, or a description of what can be found in this puzzle’s theme answers]–the next No Kings protest is Saturday at noon in 2,000 locations) revealer is telling us to find synonyms for “fight” spelled backwards within the themers. NOW OR NEVER has a ROW. FONDUE FORK‘s got a FEUD. There’s a BRAWL in CIVIL WAR BUFFS. And CRAPSHOOTS contains a SPAR. Lively set of themers here.
I don’t have ROKU but enjoyed the clue, [Streaming company that sells TVs cheap (so they can sell your data to advertisers)]. Also fun: [Where only the best athletes get high?], PODIUM.
Fave fill: INVEIGLE! I need to use that word more. WALLOP also packs a punch.
Entirely unknown to me: 60d. [___-washing (cocktail flavoring technique)], FAT. You can read about it here. It’s to infuse a savory flavor from something fatty into a mixed drink. Too much effort! Just eat something alongside your drink.
Four stars from me.
Victoria Fernandez Grande’s Universal crossword, “Countrywide” — pannonica’s précis
Universal • 10/5/25 • Wed • “Countrywide” • Fernandez Grande • solution • 20251015
My time is limited this morning, so unfortunately this nice puzzle gets short shrift.
The first and last letters of the theme entries can be combined to form the names of nations.
- 17a. [Pom-pom posse] CHEER SQUAD (Chad).
- 24a. [Magic Kingdom coaster that turned 50 in 2025] SPACE MOUNTAIN (Spain).
- 52a. [Comforting kind of soup] CHICKEN NOODLE (Chile, which as a food is also comforting and kind of souplike).
- 64a. [Healthy drink] GREEN JUICE (Greece).
We’ve seen this sort of theme before, but these are all nice entries.
- 8d [State home to the “Niagara of the West“] IDAHO.
- 37d [Freeway backup?] SPARE TIRE. Clever clue.
- 38d [It might charge you in Spain] TORO. Clue contains the answer hidden in 24-across.
- 54d [Home made of snow] IGLOO. An IGLOO may be made of snow or ice.
- 14a [“Vidi”] SAW. The middle part of Caesar’s famous boast.
- 43a [A watched one never boils] POT. Needs a qualifier, because at face value it simply isn’t true.
Ciao!
Zhouqin Burnikel’s USA Today Crossword, “Age Backwards” — Emily’s write-up
What’s my age again?
USA Today, October 15, 2025, “Age Backwards” by Zhouqin Burnikel
Theme: each themer contains –EGA–
Themers:
- 17a. [Condiment also known as “salsa fresca”], PICODAGELLO
- 40a. [Place to grow your own carrots and tomatoes], VEGETABLAGERDEN
- 62a. [Ms. Pac-Man and Centipede], ARCADAGEMES
Today’s themer set includes a mix. PICODEGALLO took me a few crossings but everything had fair crossings. “Community garden” was my first thought for VEGETABLEGARDEN, although ARCADEGAMES filled right in for me. Based on the title hint, at first I thought the themers would include numbers but this hint was more on the nose than I anticipated.
Favorite fill: GEOTAG, HANGLOOSE, and ORION
Stumpers: ASTO (mis-directed by cluing), USMAP (only “atlas” came to mind so needed crossings), and LINING (kept thinking about a type of layer)
Cluing was a bit tricky for me but overall I had a smooth gird and enjoyed both the fill and the grid design. Lots of fun lengthy bonus fill as well.
4.0 stars
~Emily
Victoria Fernandez Grande’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s theme summary
This Wednesday’s LA Times features a typical mid-week LA Times theme, with an longer, idiomatic explaining answer: STIRTHEPOT. The letters of POT are “stirred” to be found in the middles of five other (fairly) long across answers. A nice touch is that there are six ways to arrange those letters, and we get all six for the complete set:
- [Like some fast planes], JETPOWERED
- [Exclusive excursion], VIPTOUR
- [Chili dish served in a corn chip bag], FRITOPIE
- [Toaster pastry brand], POPTARTS
- [Had a decent showing on the links], SHOTPAR. For 99% of players, that is once-in-a-lifetime good, not decent though.
Gareth
NYT: I don’t think it would be right to rate this one seeing as it’s an amateur constructor (of crosswords, anyway). Cool theme, high ceiling/low floor on the fill, and honestly kind of tough for a Wednesday.
Did you notice that Nick Offerman had help from Christina Iverson? It’s fair to rate it — at least as fair as rating any other puzzle from a constructor making their debut.
I think the difference between Nick Offerman and another debut constructor is that Nick’s crossword is surely a one-off. I’ve seen that constructors read these comments and take them seriously. The feedback on a puzzle like this doesn’t matter the way it would to someone who hopes to publish more crosswords.
That’s a valid point.
As mentioned in the Wordplay column, the New York Times did a week’s worth of puzzles with celebrity constructors teamed with an experienced NYT-published constructor. I doubt many of those people went on to make more puzzles.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
It’s mostly the clues that don’t work.
Some are too difficult (e.g. “place” for LIEU!?) for Wednesday and some are disputable. Besides ELS as mentioned in the blog, one more example would be the VANE, which is probably spinning in the wind but not blowing in the wind.
NYT: I thought this was going to be a Schrodinger puzzle at first, with CRAFT BEERS / C-PLUS and DRAFT BEERS / D-PLUS. I wonder if anyone chose wrong and couldn’t figure out where the mistake was.
I did. Grumbled also about the idea of specifying draft beers for artisanal brewers. Convinced my error was in EAMES or JIGGETY. Oops.
NYT
Very cool to see this byline, and the theme got me thinking about what other possibilities were out there. I’m going to withhold a rating as well.
The weakest themer for me was JIGGETY JIG for a couple of reasons. First of all, I’ve never heard the term, and cluing JIG in reference to a saw is overlooking the fact that a jig is a tool in its own right (probably hard to clue, I admit, and maybe obscure to non-woodworkers). Plus, the definitions for JIGGETY that I find all seem to indicate it means “jerky” or “unsteady”…hardly praise for a tool.
Would have been cool to see FIRE DRILL, but that would probably mean having to replace QUITE A BIT, since they’re so similar. SOUND LEVEL or SOUND FILE could have also worked.
Should an extraneous tool (AWL) be in the grid? It could easily be removed with ATL/TRITE.
And finally, cluing EAMES as “Noted chairman?” overlooks the fact that the furniture was jointly designed by Charles Eames and his wife Ray, which seems to happen often:
“Ray Eames is often credited as the driving force behind the aesthetic vision of the Eames office. She is said to have been responsible for developing many of the office’s most iconic designs, including the Eames Lounge Chair and the fibreglass shell chairs. Despite her significant contributions to the partnership, Ray’s work was often overshadowed by her husband’s. Charles Eames was seen as the firm’s public face and received most of the accolades and attention.”
(from http://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com)
We have a vintage Eames shell chair in our living room. It’s a rocking chair and is the most uncomfortable chair in our house.
I agree with you completely about JIGGETY JIG. I’ve never heard of it, either, and it’s not a parallel construction to the other 3 tools, which are said to be “really spectacular,” “truly awesome,” and “ideal.”
Meanwhile, JIGGETY JIG is described as “lively.” Which is not the same thing as “really spectacular,” “truly awesome,” or “ideal” at all.
LAT – 50a caught my eye. According to some light searching, fewer than 1% of all handicap-carrying golfers ever post a score of par or better. A little better than ‘decent’ unless the golfer is a professional
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
NYT: The revealer made me laugh. Really fun. I caught on to the theme after a bit (haha), which was helpful. But I was completely stymied by some of the content- Never heard of JIGGETY JIG, but it seems like legit expression of excitement– good to know. But that blocked a good part of the action.
I do think it’s on the harder side for Wednesday but it was a positive solving experience because of the playfulness and originality of the theme.
The phrase comes from an old nursery rhyme, and I’m not sure people under 40 or 50 would necessarily know it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_market,_to_market
I’m well over 50 and I don’t recognize that nursery rhyme.
But JIGGETY-JIG must have been floating around in my head somewhere, because it didn’t seem too weird when I put it in.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
That makes 2 of us. I am well over 50 and never heard the nursery rhyme that Amy suggests is commonly known. I guessed at the “g,” but as one with extremely pedestrian food preferences, I could not see “ant egg” as a Thai food item. Initially, I had “gob,” not “mob,” but changed it to the “m.” And as one who hasn’t played a video game since Space Invaders in the 1980s, I had to guess at “nerfed.” All in all, I did not enjoy this puzzle one bit.
JIGGETY-JIG also reminds me of the movie Blade Runner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpK6GcViC88
…and it was said during the Apollo 16 mission, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaMNxgB_ddE
“jiggety” is just “like a jig” — so that one was just a bit odd, to me.
i.e., jig = up-and-down saw, and jiggety = up-and-downity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ztM_Y_PlAo&t=140s
Much as I’m a fan of Nick Offerman, I was not thrilled with this puzzle. As Franck says above, a JIG is a thing in its own right, not (in my experience) a short form of jigsaw. And there’s some unfriendly fill: INRUN, ANTEGG, NERFED.
Nice idea for a puzzle, but could have used more polishing (not to mention sanding and buffing).
I think Nick and Megan, his wife, may be the coolest couple in recorded history.
NYT: Can’t remember the last time I had a DNF on a Wednesday. LIEU/INRUN/BRB/ANTEGG – sorry – not for me.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
This one was really difficult for me and not in a good way. I got stuck on the area around JIGGETY JIG because of some unfamiliar fill and the fact that I have not heard that phrase used—or seen it in print—once in my life before today.
I don’t mind hard puzzles but ugh.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
This was a cute idea for a Wednesday-appropriate theme, and on the challenging side for a Wednesday – but challenging because of a few dicey clues and “unfriendly fill” already mentioned above, and particularly because of 24A, which was a real outlier amongst the themers.
First of all, to the extent that anyone uses JIGGETY as an adjective, it does not mean “exceptional” as in the other theme clues, but “jerky, unsteady” (per Merriam-Webster).
Second, as others have noted, a JIG is a different tool than a saw. That’s not to say that someone, somewhere, has never used “jig” as shorthand for a jigsaw. But I’ve been a tool guy all my long life, and have known and worked with a great many others, and I’ve never heard this usage. If you need a saw, and say “hand me that jig”, you’re likely to get a confused look and the question “what jig?”
So a lot of my extra time on this puzzle was spent trying to figure out what 24A could be that made sense. Turned out, it didn’t, so that was a disappointing way to finish the puzzle.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
Is no one going to mention GOB for “whole bunch”? That, INRUN, ANTEGG and LIEU and a GOB of other fill made this puzzle a slog, and a mismatch for a Wednesday difficulty. IMHO.
Gobs of nits today.
I’m surprised at the failure of kindergarten education. We probably need less computer coding and more nursery rhymes.
I’m fast approaching 70 and have never heard of that nursery rhyme either. (And my knowledge of coding pretty much stopped with Fortran 77, which was hot stuff back in the day, lemme tell ya).
I know. I wrote the best Fortran 77 compiler in the industry.
NYT: I thought this was quite fun! I’d heard the nursery rhyme for JIGGETY JIG, though that was the last to fall for me.
I liked the little bits that felt like they were also from Nick Offerman; APRON and BBQED for grilling, AWL as an additional woodworking tool, and REO Speedwagon—Nick is a proud Univ. Illinois alum, and REO Speedwagon is from here (they even performed for football halftime recently).
Nice puzzle that felt like it had some real individuality. Glad that Christina reached out to Nick to put this together!
WSJ – choppy… short answers… is there a rating scale or whatever using the number of black spaces? I count 42 in a 15×15 puzzle, seems like a lot. The Friday puzzle has 36.